


Holiday Break-In

by FullmetalChords



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Custom Hawke, Disguise, F/M, Gift Giving, Handers Secret Satinalia 2015, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Revolution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-09 14:00:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5542553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FullmetalChords/pseuds/FullmetalChords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anders, Hawke, and Justice make plans to bring gifts to the mages in the Gallows for Satinalia. Easier said than done.</p><p>Written for animasevera/audacityinblack for the Handers Secret Satinalia exchange!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Holiday Break-In

**Author's Note:**

  * For [animasevera](https://archiveofourown.org/users/animasevera/gifts).



> The Hawke used in this fic is [animasevera](http://archiveofourown.org/users/animasevera/pseuds/animasevera)'s Lysandra Hawke, a red mage that shows up often in her own fic. I did my best to bring her to life!
> 
> Another note that may help this fic make a bit more sense: apparently Gregory Ellis, Cullen's VA, also voiced Anders circa Awakening. The idea that Anders [likes to do mocking impressions of Cullen in his spare time](http://heartbleats.tumblr.com/post/124917679008/they-used-to-have-the-same-va-so-i-can-only) is a headcanon that gives me life, so I decided to use it. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Snow was falling over Kirkwall.

White flakes swirled and danced in the sharp wind outside the manor window. Snow came to soften the world’s edges, to form fluffy piles on pointed roofs and pine trees’ jagged branches. It was easy to think, watching the snow fall, that perhaps the world was not such a cruel place as it truly was.

From the warmth of Hawke’s manor, a stone’s throw from one of many roaring fireplaces and a mug of hot tea in his hands, Anders watched as the courtyard vanished under thick flakes. The sight, peaceful as it was, was only making his nerves more on-edge.

It was… difficult for him to lose himself even in the simplest pleasures, though Hawke had begun to make it easier for him and Justice to relax. But the knowledge that he, Anders, was here, safe and warm and cared for, while thousands of mages across Thedas lacked even this most basic of blessings… well, it rankled at Anders. At Justice as well, tucked as he always was in his own space in Anders’s mind.

Two warm arms came to wind themselves around his middle, and Anders let his train of thought be interrupted as he relaxed in Hawke’s embrace. 

“So quiet,” came her voice in his ear. “What’s on your mind?”

Anders set his tea down on an end table before covering Hawke’s hands with his. 

“I was thinking about the mages in the Gallows,” he said truthfully, leaning against her. It was no good to tell even a white lie about simply “watching the snow”; Justice had long put a stop to that, chiding him for even the smallest dishonesty.

“You always are,” Hawke said, but there was no accusation in her voice. She simply held Anders a little tighter, resting the side of her head against his arm. Hawke knew how consumed Anders and Justice were with their shared cause, and she often flung herself into their work right at their side. It was the first time Anders had had a partner he could easily talk to, since communications between himself and Justice often became tangled in their shared psyche.

“It’s Satinalia tomorrow,” Anders said quietly, watching the flakes fall harder and faster outside. “None of them will receive gifts. None of them will even be allowed to see their families. _It is a grave injustice,”_ Justice finished for him, their voices blending in the air. _“Keeping innocents subjugated and imprisoned even on this most joyous of mortal days._ ” Though Justice still had a somewhat rough grasp on how time passed outside of the Fade, he had come to appreciate, if not fully ascribe to, the significance mortals placed on certain days.

Hawke nodded in agreement, letting her hold on her lovers’ body loosen. “You’re right,” she said, and Justice turned to see the usual fire blazing in her eyes. “I’ve got an idea for the best Satinalia present ever for them.” 

Justice’s eyes widened, taking Hawke’s hands. “ _Tell us._ ”

“What you’ve been asking me for since the day we met: Meredith’s head on a pike.”

“ _Yes…_ no!” Justice’s pleased grin faded to a look of dismay as Anders regained dominance in their shared body. “Lys, love, we can’t just _murder_ Meredith. I mean, I wouldn’t mourn her one bit, but… She can easily be replaced with someone just as bad or worse.” 

“Then we’ll put _all_ the Templars’ heads on pikes.”

“The Chantry will send in new Templars.” Anders pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed, also directing the words to his spirit. “Taking down individual Templars, or even freeing individual mages, won’t cause any lasting change for the mages in Kirkwall. We all know this.”

It was a hard truth that the three of them had arrived at during their years working in the Mage Underground. Leading mages out of the Gallows one by one did little good when those beds in the apprentice quarters would be filled with new bodies by morning. Killing one cruel Templar did little to stop the widespread abuse mages suffered at Templar hands. The hydra kept growing new heads, and new mages were killed or made Tranquil at its hands every day.

What could the three of them do in a single day to help the lot of the mages in the Gallows?

“Anders.” The sharpness in Hawke’s voice made him look at her, surprised. Her eyes were blazing again. “So what? So we can’t tear down the Circles in a day. Does that really mean there’s _nothing_ we can do to make their lives the least bit more… livable?”

Anders’s heart caught in his throat at her words. It was true: when he’d been in the Fereldan Circle, there was anything he would have done for some kindness from an outsider. It never ceased to amaze him how easily Lys, who had been a free mage all her life, grasped what good the little things could do for those who were truly desperate. But…

“Justice,” he said slowly, feeling the spirit move unhappily within him. “Justice thinks… it’s a pittance. _You see your fellow mages bleeding,”_ Justice continued, letting his voice be heard, “ _and believe their suffering can end with… beverages? Colorful masks?”_

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Hawke said harshly, frowning at the spirit. “Justice. Look at me.” Reluctantly, the spirit did. “We _will_ free the mages. Every last one of them. We will. I swear it on the spires of the Black City. But we can’t do it by tomorrow.”

Justice huffed unhappily, though he knew she was right.

And then Hawke’s face split into the trademark wicked grin they’d both come to love so much.

“But in the meantime,” she said, conjuring a bit of fire into her palm, “why should we bother playing by _all_ their rules?”

 

\--

 

In the end, finding their way into the Gallows was almost child’s play.

It helped, of course, that Lys was the Champion of Kirkwall, allowed almost completely unfettered access to most parts of the city. It helped, too, that the Knight-Captain trusted her enough to respond to her invitation for holiday drinks at the Hanged Man without bringing a half-dozen of his heavily armed friends along. After a few ales that had been spiked with strong Antivan liquor, a staggering Cullen had let Hawke lead him into one of the rooms at the inn in order to sleep it off. 

She made sure he was fully unconscious before she stole his armor.

“Are you certain I can’t steal his trousers as well?” Anders whispered outside the door, once she had his Templar breastplate and metal skirt in hand. “Maybe draw some spectacles and a mustache on his ugly mug? _Or we could kill him as he sleeps,”_ Justice threw in. _“A Templar cannot be allowed to live in this city where his kind torments mages._ ”

“Focus, you two,” Hawke hissed, helping Anders don the helm. Soon only his eyes were visible, two pinpricks peering out through the darkness. “You’ve been working on that impression, haven’t you?”

“Stop that, you mage,” Anders said in a pitch-perfect imitation of Cullen’s voice, the sound ringing inside the helm. He’d proven to be rather talented at copying the Templar’s voice and mannerisms, and could often be persuaded by Varric or Isabela to do his impression on Wicked Grace night. “’Blessed are the peacekeepers, champions of the just’—I feel ill,” he finished in his normal voice. “Justice isn’t happy wearing this… flaming sword insignia, either. Maybe we can think of another way into the Gallows? The underground passage is still open and unguarded… well, mostly.”

“You can do it,” Hawke soothed, laying a hand on the silver gauntlet he wore. “I’ll be right beside you the whole time.”

“ _Will you please burn this armor once we have finished with it?”_

Hawke ignored Justice’s question, handing them Cullen’s sword and shield to strap to their back, completing the illusion. “Let’s get a move on!”

 

\--

 

And so two apostates strolled right through the front gate of the Gallows in broad daylight, completely unquestioned by the Templars standing guard. A couple of them even saluted Anders as he passed, his Cullen disguise fooling them completely.

“Shame I won’t be able to milk this,” he said in an aside to Hawke, returning a junior Templar’s salute with a customary strike to his breast. “Imagine, getting this kind of respect from those bastards if I was in my regular clothes.”

Hawke was shaking her head, eyes continually darting around the courtyard. “I don’t like this,” she grumbled, fingers flexing as she fought the urge to reach for her staff. “There’re more Templars than usual in the yard today. Why?”

There was a clank as Anders shrugged. “Because it’s Satinalia, and they’re being even bigger arseholes by keeping mages’ families away from them today? You!” he suddenly barked in Cullen’s voice, directing his command to a Templar that was leering particularly close to an apprentice selling wares. “You’re due in the training yard, that’s a lad!” The Templar balked, scurrying away as fast as he could in his skirts.

“Mad with power,” Hawke said drily, shaking her head at him.

“Positively drunk with it, love,” Anders shot back, equally deadpan. He held out a hand for the bag she carried. “If you can stall them for, oh, twenty minutes, I can make my way through the mages’ quarters and leave those.”

Hawke frowned at the thought of being separated from Anders, but she knew he was right. While she was allowed to walk around the Gallows courtyard, there was very little chance she would actually be allowed to walk into the Circle and come back out again. Anders, disguised as Cullen, had a much better chance of passing unnoticed.

“If anyone hurts you,” she said, passing over the gunnysack, “they’ll only ever find bits of them.” 

Anders’s expression was hidden by the helm he wore, but she still heard him chuckle. “I know, love,” he said, reaching to touch her cheek, or maybe to stroke her long blonde hair. But Hawke caught his hand before he could touch her.

“You’re supposed to be Cullen,” she hissed, and Anders dropped his hand.

“Right, right…” He stuffed the sack inside his breastplate; though it was fairly large, it fit rather well in the gap between the metal and Anders’s chest. One of the few advantages for Anders being as thin as he was, she supposed. “Off to make the rounds,” Anders announced to no one in particular before strolling in the direction of the mages’ quarters. Hawke, meanwhile, turned her attention to one rather tall, gangly figure standing in the corner of the courtyard, supervising some Orzammar dwarves who were unloading a shipment of lyrium. 

“Right, dear brother,” Lys said to herself in honeyed tones as she strode in his direction, “let’s see what excuses you’ve got for me today.”

 

\--

 

He hated the silence echoing in the halls, broken only by the clanking of the hated metal skirt he wore. Anders had sworn to never set foot in another Circle, not unless he was there to liberate it. He and Justice had made that vow together, and yet… yet…

He shook his head frantically, trying to silence his own guilt and Justice’s unhappy flutters at the base of his skull. They’d be coming back to liberate the Gallows. Someday soon; Lys had promised them. One day Elthina would see reason. One day his words would make a difference. One day the people in Kirkwall would rise up with the rest of the underground and help them set the mages free. One day… one day. 

It was just… hard to realize that day could not be today. More than hard. Impossible.

He swallowed, entering the empty barracks where the apprentices and Harrowed mages presumably slept. Thankfully, the room was deserted, meaning no one was there to see a Templar leaving any sort of gifts for mages. He and Hawke had talked for a long time about what might be appropriate to give them: money to ease life after escape, perhaps, or copies of his manifesto to show the mage underground was still doing its best to reach them.

But in the end, Anders had found his best idea by thinking of what would have meant the most to him, had someone done this for him at Kinloch.

And so, on the end of every mage’s bunk, he placed a small bundle of square shortbread biscuits, tied together with a red ribbon that had been looped around one of the feathers from his coat (a symbol Justice had insisted upon). Orana had made all the biscuits, taking a classic Starkhaven recipe and testing it over and over until Sebastian and Varric, both native Marchers, had deemed her efforts acceptable. Since most of the mages here were from the Free Marches, Anders and Lys had decided to bring them treats that might remind them of their childhood, before they’d been locked up in here. A reminder that life still existed for them outside of the Gallows.

And tucked between two pieces of this holiday treat were scraps of parchment bearing some of Anders’s own words. Nothing inflammatory; nothing that would cause trouble if found by a Templar. Instead, in his best handwriting, Anders had written a message to each mage that he had most needed to hear when he had been a prisoner.

_You are not a monster._

_You are not a mistake._

_You and your gifts come from the Maker, and you deserve to exist._  

Someday soon, Anders thought to himself as he placed the final gift on the seat in Orsino’s office, he would make the world agree.

\--

 

Talking to Carver rarely ended well even on the best of days. Today was not even close to one of her “best days”.

“So _happy Satinalia_ , brother,” Hawke spat, concluding a ten-minute rant on all the ways Carver was betraying their father, their sister, and even _her_ by his very existence. She, Anders, and Justice had all agreed that while the other two were sneaking into the mages’ quarters, Hawke’s role would be to cause a distraction in the courtyard so no one would notice “Cullen’s” disappearance. Not that all her angry ranting in her younger brother’s direction had been an act. “Such a shame that you joining the Order didn’t end up being an elaborate prank carried out in the spirit of the holiday!”

“Are you done, Lys?” Carver said, looking furious. “Lovely to see you and all, sis, but I could do without all the lectures on how everything I do with my life is _wrong_.”

Someone cleared their throat behind her, and Hawke turned to see Cullen – no, Anders standing there, still wearing Cullen’s helm. She took a moment to silently thank him for not getting her attention by clapping a gauntleted hand on her shoulder.

“That’s quite enough, Champion,” Anders said in his sternest, most Cullen-y voice. “Carver has duties to return to, and I believe you have a certain apostate to go home to?” 

Hawke wasn’t quite able to hide her smile at his words, but Carver – who had snapped to attention at the sight of the knight-captain insignia – looked confused.

“Sir… forgive me, sir, but I was unaware you knew my first name…” He broke off, squinting into the shadowed face of the armored man before him. “…Anders?”

Ice slipped into Hawke’s stomach, and beside her, Anders stiffened. Carver’s expression quickly went incandescent with rage, mirroring Lys at her worst.

“Anders! That _is_ you… what have you done to the Knight-Captain?!” 

They’d been found out. Hawke and Anders exchanged one single, terrified look…

…and then they both turned on their heels, sprinting as one to the fortress’s main gate.

“Shit,” Anders panted, struggling to run in his armor, “that… could’ve… _That boy will report us!”_ Justice had taken over, presumably so their body would be able to bear the weight of all that metal. “ _Lysandra, we have a duty to remain and explain our position to him…”_

“Like hell,” Hawke gasped, clutching at a stitch in her side even as she continued to run. “Carver may be my brother, but he’s… hardly the most understanding person in the world…”

The two of them were halfway across the channel before the klaxons started to sound.

\--

 

Hours later, once the hubbub had passed, Hawke and Anders found themselves back in front of the fire at the manor, sharing some of Orana’s leftover shortbread and hoping – praying – that their efforts had helped raise mages’ morale, even temporarily.

That evening in the Gallows, dozens of mages clustered together in their dormitory to marvel over the mysterious gifts that had materialized on the ends of their bunks, to nibble on their crumbly shortbread together and speak in tearful whispers over the messages that had been left them. Though they debated for hours, they were unable to think of a single person, mage or Templar, who would have left Satinalia gifts for them, which meant there must have been a kind benefactor on the outside. For the first time in years, sparks of hope wavered in their breasts. 

And if Cullen Rutherford awoke with a massive hangover to find scorch marks marring his once-pristine armor, downy feathers stuck in the links of his mail?

Well. Knowing Lysandra Hawke as he did, he could only be only thankful nothing worse had happened.

**Author's Note:**

> Visit me at phoenixrei.tumblr.com if you like Anderfeels and Hamiltrash! Also, more fic containing both.


End file.
